The Convivial Codfish by Charlotte MacLeod Read Free Book Online

heat.
    A pretty child of twelve or so in a long velvet dress with a lace collar was there to take coats. She turned out to be the Tolbathys’ granddaughter, showed her matching lace pantalettes to Marcia Whet, who must be an intimate family friend, lamented that she was going to be kicked off and sent to bed before the train started, and finally got around to hanging up Max’s black cashmere overcoat and stowing the pop-top hat Dolph’s wife, Mary, had resurrected originally for Jem to wear. Together, she and Max got Mrs. Whet out of her boa, pelisse, and pheasant; then Max escorted the elder lady back against the rising tide of petticoats and pseudopelage.
    The Tolbathys knew how to put on an elegant affair, that was clear. The lights were dim enough to make all the ladies look handsome and all the men at least moderately distinguished. Max saw no fountain spouting champagne—that must have been one of the flights of hyperbole to which Uncle Jem was so prone—but he did observe a bar set up in the dining car, manned by a bartender wearing red arm garters, the inevitable walrus mustache with well-waxed ends, and a black toupee neatly parted down the middle. Beside the bar stood a square white table draped in white damask, bearing an elaborate silver epergne topped by a swan carved out of ice. It was the sort of thing that ought to have dishes of food on it, but there was not a bite of anything in sight, and that surprised Max a great deal.
    Somebody else must have been thinking along the same line, for Max heard a man behind him mutter, “For God’s sake, aren’t they going to feed us?”
    “Be patient, dear,” said the woman who was presumably his wife. “You know Hester always does thing in grand style. I expect the caterers are a little late getting organized.”
    “Caterers? Why couldn’t they have used their own staff?”
    “To serve a crowd like this on a moving train? Darling, Hester knows better even than to suggest it. Oh, goody, more champagne.”
    Over at the table beside the bar, a wine steward, correct in black coat, white gloves, and a heavy silver chain of office with a silver corkscrew dangling from it, was deflty easing the cork out of a magnum. Max went over to get some for Marcia Whet and took a long, thoughtful look at the silver chain while he was waiting for the bubbly to be poured.
    The sommelier paid no attention to Max or to anybody else but filled glasses in dignified silence until the bottle was empty. Then he opened another magnum from the ice-filled silver bucket that stood on the bar. Then he handed the duty of pouring over to the bartender and disappeared.
    Almost immediately he was back, carrying a biggish silver tray. He busied himself about the epergne for a moment or two, then stood back so those clustered around the bar could see the effect he’d achieved. The upper arms were now laden with cut-glass dishes of chopped onion, sieved egg yolk, and curls of sweet butter; the lower ones with silver baskets of thin-sliced dark bread and crisp melba toast.
    “Now he’s going to open the caviar,” Marcia Whet murmured to Max over the top of her champagne glass. “The Tolbathys always make a big thing of the caviar. Tom imports it, you know.”
    “I didn’t, actually. What else does he import?”
    “Escargots, marrons glacés, that sort of thing. Tom’s Fancy Foreign Foods. Tom and his brother Wouter, I should say; though entre nous, Tom’s the driving force now that their father has gone. I do wish that man would get on with it. I adore caviar.”
    However, the man with the silver chain took his time, scrutinizing the tin for any possible flaw, then inserting the tip of a handheld can opener and painstakingly screwing it around until the lid came off clean. He held the opened tin up for yet another inspection, then carefully scooped its contents out with a silver spoon into a gleaming crystal bowl. At last, like a Mayan priest offering up a virgin, he lifted the bowl in both